


love is a game, you say (play me and put me away)

by aghamora



Category: How to Get Away with Murder
Genre: Cunnilingus, Dom Laurel, Dom/sub, F/M, Femdom, Mutual Masturbation, Orgasm Delay/Denial, Power Dynamics, Sex Toys, Sub Frank
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-18
Updated: 2016-12-18
Packaged: 2018-09-09 13:41:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 9,155
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8892853
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aghamora/pseuds/aghamora
Summary: “In her defense – not that she needs one – it doesn’t start consciously. Not really.It starts with little things.”Or, Laurel could get Frank to do just about anything. So she does.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Not really sure when this takes place? In some simpler AU of season 3 sans any death/pregnancy but Frank has still left and come back. I don’t know. Make up your own premise. The point is, as always… smut. 
> 
> This was going to be a chapter of Bedroom Hymns, but it got way too long and felt like it needed its own domain and title and all that ish. And this is very long. Like idk why all my smut is always so long it's an issue (but also not?).
> 
> Title comes from the song Hands All Over by Maroon 5. Sue me.

In her defense – not that she needs one – it doesn’t start consciously. Not really.

It starts with little things.

Asking him to clean her place for her on weekends. Bring over her favorite takeout from Wok Out on weekdays. Get her coffee, just like she likes it. Grow back the beard – although that is, admittedly, _far_ from a small matter.

Tiny, seemingly innocuous orders, saccharine commands she gives with a bat of her eyelashes and a sweet little grin, and that’s all it takes to have him in the palm of her hand, wrapped around her little finger; for someone so outwardly intimidating, as it turns out, Frank is pretty damn easy to control, completely and utterly, in all things.

They’re tiny, innocuous little orders. Until they aren’t.

Until they escalate, as most things in her world tend to do. Until it becomes something darker, deeper, markedly more sinister. Punishment, for leaving her. It’s not a conscious punishment, either. She never makes up her mind to explicitly sentence him to any sort of penance; it happens all on its own, like a beast stampeding out of some cage deep inside her, roaring and growling and rearing to go, snapping at the bars holding it back.

They’re tiny, innocuous little things. And then…

Then, they aren’t.

 

~

 

Late afternoon on a Friday.

Laurel is tired. All Laurel wants to do, if she’s being honest, is go home, and scarf down whatever shitty leftover takeout she has left in her fridge for however many fatty calories it’s worth, and sleep off this eighty-hour hell week. Frank isn’t a part of that plan, though she’s sure he’d like to be – but he knows where he stands with her now, knows his place, and knows, for the most part, not to step out of it, if he wants the quick kisses and touches she deigns to give him when he’s good.

And he is good, for her. Most of the time.

Speaking of…

Her eyes flit across the room to where Frank sits, in the leather recliner in the office doorway, flipping through a stack of precedents like she is and seeming just as uninterested. He looks like himself, again, and it’s been a journey these past few months to get used to _seeing_ him look like himself, all three-piece suits and slicked back hair and beard. He’s seated there with his sleeves rolled up to expose his thick forearms, late afternoon sun slanting over him in rays, catching the blues of his eyes in the most disarming way. His brow is furrowed in concentration, hand tapping a pen idly against the side of the chair. The others aren’t there, and she’s grateful for the liberty to stare, unabashed, openly. Unashamed. Not that she wouldn’t stare if they _were_ there, that is.

She doesn’t have much shame these days, turns out.

Laurel thinks, for a moment. Then, she rises up out of her chair with sudden determination, stack of files in hand, and strides over to him.

“I think I’m gonna head home early,” she declares flippantly, feigning nonchalance, when really her skin is prickling, to see how far she can push him, dipping her toe in and testing the waters of this new ground they’re standing on. She holds out the stack to him, cocking her head to one side, letting her voice take on that soft, airy quality she knows will get him. “Mind finishing these up for me?”

He frowns. “What?”

She just gives him a look, in response. He scoffs.

Frank sets aside his own files, folding his hands and leaning back in the chair, smirking. “You pawnin’ your work off on me now?”

She shrugs. “Oh, I just… thought maybe you’d wanna help me out. Maybe I’ll let you come over later.”

It’s that phrasing – _let_ , let him do something, anything – that ignites the fire in his eyes, cool gaze burning like blue flame. Used to be that he could come over, come home with her, and wouldn’t need her to _let_ him do anything. Used to be they were on equal footing, once, though maybe she’d always been at an inherent disadvantage, before the dynamics of power had shifted, all the scales tipping in her favor. And that hadn’t been by chance, by happenstance.

She’d _made_ them tip in her favor.

And he looks at her then, pupils blown up wide and black, a look of barely concealed desire on her face, and Laurel swears she can feel herself fucking _drip_. He’s always been able to do that, get her cunt dripping between her legs, her clit aching against the seam of her panties with nothing more than a look, a smirk, a word. It’s biological, she’s convinced. Some intrinsic response her body has to his, in her cells, in even the tiniest atom of her. Must be. She used to act on those urges, impulsively. Let him undo her with no effort at all.

Used to. Not now.

She’s the one who undoes him, now. And she wants to try more. Pushing him further, into new, dangerous territory. She knows she can get him to go.

She thinks she could probably get him to do just about anything.

“Fine,” is all Frank says, finally, relenting and pretending to grumble as he takes the stack of files from her. “But you owe me.”

She doesn’t, and those words are empty and they both know it, but Laurel hums and lifts her leg suddenly, setting her foot down on the chair in one swift motion, right between his legs. It’s more than enough to get his attention, and he flinches slightly, straightening his back, making a low sound almost like a grunt. She rubs her lips together, taking in the sight of him, reading him, before letting out another flippant sigh.

“We’ll see about that,” she tells him, and lets her foot drop down, and leaves him with that, sauntering out of the room with added flair, for effect.

She can feel his eyes on her as she leaves. And she knows she has him.

She always has, she ponders, as she tries, half-heartedly, to focus on studying at her place, papers spread out before her on the bed, clad in lazy grey sweatpants and a t-shirt. She’s always had him; she just hadn’t realized it, and now that she has, now that she _knows_ it she’s like a lioness, roaring free, aware of her own strength, unable to be tamed by anyone. It’s a dangerous game she’s playing, with him. Dancing too close to a flame. Things have been different since he came back, but deep down they’re the same, in essence. She’d made it clear he’d have to work his way back into her good graces. Be good for her.

And he’s learning. Learning how to be good, for her. Learning how to give himself to her, and she’s learning how to _take_ , take charge. Take him.

She’d never thought she would be the type. Turns out she is, maybe had been all along. Maybe all she’d needed was some… encouragement. And the right circumstances.

It’s somewhere around seven, and the sun has only just dipped below the horizon when she hears his knock on her door – those distinctive three raps that can mean only Frank has come calling. She ignores the pleasant dip in her stomach when the sound meets her ears, and springs up from the couch, steel in her back, chin raised.

She hadn’t told him he could come over. He hadn’t asked.

He’s going to have to learn he needs permission for things like this. But she’ll teach him. He’ll learn.

“Hey,” he greets, holding up a bottle of Chianti as he steps inside. “Finally got off for the night – no thanks to you and your pile of a thousand precedents.”

His tone is joking, but she keeps her features set, severe. “I say you could come over?”

She folds her arms, assuming a rather standoffish pose. He takes one look at her and chuckles, that fucking infuriating, smug smirk on his face, like he thinks she’s kidding, and he’s gotten better at this since they started, sure, better at submitting to her, but there are still times he doesn’t seem to take it seriously, take _her_ seriously, like they’re playing at some game. Like he thinks this is just one long-running joke and one day she’s just going to burst out laughing.

“After all my hard work a ‘thank you’ might be nice,” he quips, going for the kitchen and setting the bottle down on her polished granite countertop, shrugging off his suit jacket.

Laurel follows, still glowering, rage bubbling in her blood, simmering under her skin. He’s always been able to piss her off; he’s nothing if not infuriating, from his cocksure attitude to the dumb jokes he fancies endlessly witty and hilarious. And he succeeds in doing it right then.

A _whole_ hell of a lot.

“You think you can invite yourself over whenever you want?” she demands, voice low and even, full of quiet anger. She’s not the type to yell, scream at him; when she orders him around it’s like this, soft but not at all gentle.

“C’mon. Don’t pretend like you don’t want me here.”

“If I want you to come over,” she says, simply, folding her arms, “I’ll text you.”

Frank scoffs, again, but stops mid-scoff, at the precise moment he seems to realize she _isn’t_ kidding, holding his gaze evenly, unflappable. He never seems quite sure how to behave around her now, how to find his footing, endlessly trying to discern if she’s joking or serious when she orders him around. Mostly she wants him to stop assuming she’s joking.

She’s _not_ joking.

“Sorry,” is all the apology she gets out of him, half-assed, barely convincing. He shoves his hands into his pockets, shifting a bit awkwardly beneath her gaze. “I can go, if you want, just figured-”

“No,” she says, dismissively, and reaches into one of her cupboards for her wine bottle opener. She pours herself a glass once she has the cork out, very conspicuously leaving him to pour his own, and she sees him roll his eyes but he doesn’t protest, just follows suit. “You’re already here.”

For a while she sips in silence, facing away from him, towards the counter, until she hears him approach, feels him press himself against her from behind and come to a stop, setting his wine glass aside. Tentatively, slowly, his hands come to settle on her hips, and they scald her skin when they do but she doesn’t let it show, just keeps looking straight ahead, sipping her wine, impassive, like she barely even notices.

“I say you could touch me?” she asks. Doesn’t snap. Just asks, casual as anything, and behind her Frank tenses, and she swears she can hear his breath hitch in his throat. If she were closer she imagines she’d feel his cock stir in his slacks, all the blood in his head making a mass exodus down south.

He’ll deny it to the death, she knows, but he gets off on this too; more than he wants her to know. But she does. She knows; she’s the observant one, after all. He may like to think he’s hard to read, some elusive mystery of a man, but he’s laid out as wide as an open book to her, always will be.

“Sorry,” comes his answer, low, husky. His hands drop down accordingly, backing off, backing away. He hasn’t earned that right, yet: to touch her without permission. She’d made him grow the beard back before she’d even let him touch her at all – though she thinks he probably would’ve done that without her prompting.

There’s a long list of rights he’s lost, privileges she’s revoked, things she won’t let him do. She’s still devising and _re_ vising it, day by day. It may be cruel.

A year ago, maybe Laurel would’ve cared. Now, she couldn’t care less.

They stay like that in silence, for a moment. Then, Frank clears his throat.

“What’s for dinner?”

It’s a simple, mostly innocent question, and it must say something about her spending so much time around Frank because that isn’t the way she takes it – not at all. Her mind has taken up what must be permanent residence in the gutter and it goes tumbling right back there before she can help it, into perilous territory it’s been on the brink of ever since seeing him at work.

“Me? I’m ordering Chinese,” she says, and turns to face him, leaning back against the counter. “You? You’re eating out.”

Frank blinks, watching as she shifts, spreading her legs apart ever so slightly on the ground, eyes locked on his, her meaning clear. Understanding folds itself out across his face, and he smirks, moving in for a kiss – but she places a hand on his chest to stop him before he can.

“Uh uh uh,” she chides, trying to remain stern. “That’s not where I want your mouth.”

His smirk grows even wider.

“Aye aye cap’n.”

He descends down to his knees slowly, almost leisurely, like this is his idea of a vacation and he wouldn’t rather be anywhere else in the world. And she tries not to let it get to her, the sight of Frank kneeling for her, obedient, unquestioning, peeling down her sweatpants gradually until they crumple around her ankles, and she thinks she masks her desire fairly well – on her face, at least.

Between her legs, in her panties, where his fingers are currently venturing… That’s another story entirely.

“Well, well, well,” he purrs, a slanting smirk on his face as his fingers reach the crotch of her panties; red lace well on its way to soaked through by now, growing wetter by the minute, and it sends a surge of irritation through her, to have her body betray her, give away just how badly she craves him. He presses a scratchy kiss to her inner thigh, and when he does she can feel his smirk widen. “What do we have here?”

“Shut up,” she orders, managing to make her words cutting enough that Frank refocuses and humbles himself, loses that look of bleary satisfaction in his eyes. She stumbles backwards against the counter, and one of the metal knobs on the drawers is jamming into the small of her back but somehow she barely feels it; her sensory regions are pretty much limited to the area between her legs, at present. “I said mouth. Not fingers.”

“Roger that,” is all he says, low, teasing, as he hooks his fingers into the sides of her panties and tugs them down too, slipping them down her thighs before letting gravity finish the job, sending them falling to the ground.

But he doesn’t move in for the kill right away, even with adequate access, and she knows Frank well enough to know that he won’t. He never does. Sometimes she thinks he likes foreplay more than he likes actual sex, and for a while his lips hover low, around her folds, kissing them like he would her mouth while wholly neglecting her clit, the aching bundle of nerve endings pulsating in time with the palpitations of her heart. She bites her lip, gnawing on her whimpers, chewing them up into silence and swallowing them down.

She won’t beg. She won’t give him the satisfaction.

“I got an idea,” Frank undertones against her slippery flesh, pulling away, inhaling her musk and licking his lips. “We’ll play a game. Hot ‘n cold. You tell me… if I’m gettin’ any warmer.”

Oh _fuck_ him. Fuck him.

She echoes that sentiment aloud, rising up on her toes with a hiss just as his lips slip lower, down toward the base of her cunt, near her perineum, as low as he can reach from this angle. “Fuck you.”

“Tell me,” he chuckles, and the sound shoots straight to her clit, and she’s half tempted to reach down right now and finish herself off; she’s close enough that it wouldn’t take much, just a few strokes of her fingers. “I close or not?”

“Frank-”

Lips higher. Closer to her clit. Smirking, again. Smirking against her. “Warmer?”

She almost breaks. Nearly loses it. Throws her head back and begs and lets him take the reins – but no, no, that’s not happening tonight. Without warning she reaches down, grabbing a handful of his slick hair and dragging his face away from her. His lips are glistening when he comes into view, pupils wide as black holes, sucking in and devouring his irises. His breath is catching in his throat, but his eyes are teasing, and it’s clear to her at once he doesn’t get it.

Tonight is about _her_. Control. Not him. _Her_.

“Beg for it,” she orders, coldly.

All Frank does, predictably, vexingly, is blink, wincing slightly from the pain in his scalp. “Huh?”

“You want me?” she breathes, leaning back on one elbow onto the counter. “Beg.”

He cocks his head to one side, as much as he can while she has a hold on him. “Kinda seems like _I’m_ the one doin’ you a favor here.”

Her anger surges. She swears her world must be tinted around the edges with red. Sometimes he does this; decides to be a particular sort of little asshole, play dumb, pretend like he doesn’t know what she’s after when he abso-fucking-lutely does. He gets off on that too, and she sees that look about him, that defiance, has seen it before, and doesn’t want to see it again. She wants to wring it out of him, break it and break him until he drops to his knees and devours her without protest like she’s his last meal; at the drop of a hat, a snap of her fingers.

She wants him broken. Totally. Completely. Wants him _hers_.

“You wanna eat me?” Laurel quips, glowering down at him, sloppy-faced, damp-bearded. “Beg for your dinner.”

It doesn’t seem to register, at first. Then, the realization floods his eyes, and he moves in again as soon as she’s released him, kneeling before her now as a supplicant, a new man, a beggar, all the cockiness and bravado gone from him. He moves up, kissing the silky-smooth inside of her thigh, groaning softly against it, and the sound rumbles over her fields of flesh like a little earthquake, splitting it open, forcing goosebumps up from somewhere underneath. They break out in droves and he reads them like braille, running his fingers over them, attentive, eyes trained on her with laser precision.

He’s always read her so well. Too well.

He could be cocky again. Treat this like a joke. But he’s gone long enough without her, wandering in a desert of wanting, to know not to fuck up a good thing when he has it, so he doesn’t.

Instead he opens his mouth, murmuring a low, “Please…”

Laurel frowns. Specificity is required, in these scenarios. He knows that. He’s withholding for a reason, waiting to be prompted.

So she prompts him. “Please what?”

“Laurel…”

His face is nestled between her thighs now. She wishes, suddenly, that she was laying down so he could bury his face there properly, all of him on all of her, but she’ll make the best of this situation. She bites back another moan, head tilting back, body growing increasingly boneless, one leg hooked over his shoulder, the other keeping her upright on the ground, and she’s so close, humiliatingly close, and he hasn’t even touched her yet.

She doesn’t want to think about what he’ll do to her once he _does_ start touching her.

“Tell me what you want,” she all but growls, impatient but masking the fact with anger. “Use your words.”

She might as well be talking to a dog. She figures he is; a dog at its master’s feet, begging for its dinner.

Even if this is, admittedly, a rather unconventional dinner.

“Wanna eat you,” he groans, finally, the words strained and sticking in his throat. He moves higher, feeling the heat radiating from her. “Please, Laurel, lemme eat you. I wanna taste you…”

“Mmm,” she hums, amused, but the sound hitches, morphs into a gasp. “I think you can do better than that.”

“I’ll do anything,” he entreats. He’s begging her, now. Pleading, mouth watering; always a glutton for her. When Frank plays this role he sure as fuck commits, playing it to perfection, though she wants more than a _role_ , more than faked submission, wants it more by the second. “I’ll do fuckin’ _anything_ , Laurel, _please_ -”

She manages a laugh, though her eyelids fall shut shortly afterward. “Think you’ve been good enough for that?”

“Know I have. You know I have, pl-”

She could drag this out. She should, maybe. Put him in his place. But she’s had enough of his talking, when his mouth is put to much better use in other ways, so she reaches down again, grabbing his hair, getting as good a grip as she can on the slick strands, and all but jams his face up against her, closing the gap, forcing his mouth wide on her cunt. It surprises him at first but he complies quickly, relaxing, easing into it like it’s natural, and it is, she knows it is; Frank’s natural habitat might as well be between her legs, he’s there often enough. It doesn’t start with much finesse, but eventually his tongue migrates to her clit, working it back and forth, and he gulps down her sweetness, lapping her up, catching every drop of her like ambrosia and not letting any of it go to waste.

She holds his head there. Refuses to let go or loosen her grip. She could, if only to allow him to breathe, keep her thighs from suffocating him, though she doesn’t think he’d mind going out that way, letting _death by sex_ be his epitaph. The pleasure builds higher, traversing that steep cliff towards its peak in bursts when he zeroes in on her clit, interspersed with breaks in between, when he focuses his efforts on other areas, wanting to draw this out. Prolong it. He lives for this, she knows. Lives for being on his knees with a mouthful of her cunt. Lives for _her_.

A warm singe of affection burns somewhere in her chest like a candleflame, incessant. She pinches it out.

There’s no place for that here. Not between them. Not anymore – even if she’s starting to realize she’s lying to herself.

She’s close. She’s been good at staying quiet so far, biting her tongue until it damn near severs clean in half, clamping her teeth down on the insides of her cheeks, wanting to keep her feelings to herself, keep him guessing as to how close she is. But he decrypts her so effortlessly, from the trembling of her thighs to the speed of her breathing, that her efforts to code her desire are lost on him. She doesn’t know why she bothers. He knows he has her.

Once she would’ve let him know that, freely. Now, after everything, she wants to make him work for it.

But her control is slipping. Her grip on his hair is tightening. She can feel that sinking in her belly, that tightening somewhere treacherously low. Tightening and clenching and smoldering, like a fire catching ever-lower until it reaches the valley between her thighs, edging closer and closer to that euphoric release. He seems to sense it, speeding up the motions of his mouth against her, his tongue, but purposely withholding his fingers, playing coy. Granted, she had told him she didn’t want them.

And _fuck_ she’s really regretting that now.

“Frank,” she bites out, stifling a moan as he doubles his efforts, speeds up, applying more pressure to her clit. “F-Frank, fuck, _fuck_ -”

Part of her wants to hold out, not let him get her there so quickly – but he has her unraveling before she can help it, body falling back against the counter, and her vision whites out momentarily but once it reappears she glances down at him as he works, and fucking _hell_ the sight only makes her come harder: his mouth, gaping wide on her cunt; his eyes, flickering with mirth.

He’s watching her, savoring every reaction and moan and cry he can draw from her, every sound he elicits, and it’s only a second before the blitzkriegs of pleasure overwhelm her senses again, shooting through her veins from her head to her toes and collecting between her legs, the current almost vertiginous. Setting her on the brink of delirium.

It’s only after she’s coming down that she releases his hair, and he draws back, breathing heavily, licking his lips before making a show of wiping them off with the back of his hand. He might as well be a deep-sea diver coming up for air; he’s soaked enough, soaked by her, and her cunt is still dripping between her legs, sopping wet, and she can feel it. And she thinks she could go for another round, right then.

Judging by the stiffy in his slacks, standing up large and dark, she knows he could, too.

But instead she hardens her heart and quells that desire, raising her chin and wriggling her way back into her panties and sweatpants. He stays where he is, not budging, still obediently on his knees. She thinks Frank would stay there for hours if she told him to; kneeling until his muscles ached, rocking back and forth, squirming, cock straining against his pants, cruelly unsatisfied.

She considers that, briefly. Then decides it’s not entirely necessary – as much fun as it’d be.

He’s still waiting, uncomplainingly, looking up at her, and she’s not immediately inclined to tell him to get up because seeing him there like that makes her giddy, irrationally so. He’s waiting, for the next command, for her to take the lead and guide them, even though she can tell that he’s feigning it, feigning subservience because he knows it’s what she wants, tonight. Playing a part he thinks will soon he over.

He isn’t broken. Not yet.

Breaking Frank will be a process. And, she expects, a thoroughly enjoyable one at that.

“Well,” she says, after a moment, “I’ll call in and order.”

Confusion flickers in his eyes, and he stands, moving forward all at once, pinning her back against the counter. “C’mon, don’t do me like this-”

She shrugs, pretends not to know what he means. “What? You had your dinner. Now I’m getting mine.”

“Laurel…” He sounds pained, now. Agonized. Somehow, though, he manages a smirk. “Don’t send me to bed without dessert. I been good.”

She reaches for her phone, dialing, and glancing up at him in between digits with disinterest. “Getting greedy now?”

“Laurel-”

“Better go take care of that,” she quips, giving his bulging erection a cursory glance, then raising the phone to her ear. “Before the deliveryman gets here.”

She watches him leave, sulking off into the bathroom with his tail between his legs – or rather, his cock. He looks like a kicked dog, and the thought makes giddy laughter bubble up in her chest again, right as the restaurant gives her a chipper, rehearsed greeting on the other line.

She almost asks him who’s the Puppy now. But she thinks that would be rubbing salt in the wound.

 

~

 

Things get better. Or – well, worse.

Worse for him, potentially.

Sometimes she’s cruel. Sometimes she’s kind. Sometimes she deprives him of her touches for days on end. Sometimes she makes him wait on his knees for her in the bedroom, wait for nearly an hour in sweet anticipation. Sometimes, to reward him, she lets him touch her, pump her with his fingers, eat her out until she screams.

She doesn’t let him fuck her, put his cock inside her; he hasn’t earned that particular privilege back, yet. He has to ask, first, before he can kiss or touch her, and slowly but surely Frank starts to learn those rules, understand the boundaries until he defers to her instinctively, in everything.

He craves her touch, desperately. Needs it like oxygen. He’d do anything to please her. It hadn’t even taken much to get him to this state. To fucking _wreck_ him.

A few promises. A few touches. A few commands, and he was hers.

They’re back where they were before, for the most part; before his leaving, before they’d tried to be something more than sex, played at some grandiose, childish idea of love. This is sex, pure sex, _fucking_ in absolutely every sense of the word, detachment. It’s comfortable for her, and maybe this is what they should’ve stayed long ago, instead of trying to venture deeper. It’s easier to use Frank than it is to truly care for him – even if she can see the longing in his eyes. The same longing she can feel planting itself like a seed in her heart and taking root some nights, spreading fast as an invasive weed.

It’s best to keep feelings out of this. Them. Whatever they are. She made that mistake the first time around.

She won’t make it again. No matter how much she wants to.

 

~

 

Half past eleven on a Saturday.

He calls before he comes over, asking for permission first as he’s gotten used to doing, and she grants it with a smile. He shows up at her door barely half an hour later; a fine bottle of wine in one hand, a staple of his late-night visits. Like an offering to a goddess in a temple, in the hopes that she’ll be merciful.

She will be, tonight, Laurel decides as she saunters into her kitchen, pours herself a glass and sips it slowly without offering one to him. Or, at least, merciful in her own way. She just watches him where he stands, fidgeting for a moment before meeting her eyes, gulping visibly but remaining silent – not speaking unless spoken to. A wordless, mute, hot-blooded creature. She watches, and decides what to do with him, gaze flinty, lips pursed.

She’d been a particular kind of cruel, the night before. Denied him. And he’s still defiant sometimes, acting out for the fun of it. But for the most part… he’s good.

And she knows Frank knows he’s hers. And that’s all he _needs_ to know.

After a while, Frank speaks up. “You givin’ me the silent treatment now?”

“No,” she remarks over the rim of her wine glass and grins, a bit wickedly. “I’m just thinking.”

He takes a step forward. “Penny for your thoughts?”

He comes to a stop before her but doesn’t reach out to touch her. Her grin grows wider, voice high and breathy. “I’m thinking about… what I’m gonna do to you, tonight.”

“Go easy on me for once, I hope.”

She scoffs, setting aside her glass and leaning back against the counter as he inches closer. “Maybe I will. Maybe I won’t.”

He pauses. Then, he murmurs, voice raspy, eyes lowered as if he shouldn’t look directly at her this close, lest he be blinded, “Can I touch you?”

The air shifts between them, becomes softer and sweeter. Lighter. She melts at the sound of his voice, that polite entreaty, and gives him a wordless nod. His hands come to rest on her hips, fanning out wide on her hip bones, and Frank leans forward, pressing his forehead against hers, breathing her in. It’s more intimate than she’s let him be with her in a while, more intimate than she’d like; intimate in a way that feels like it’s mere seconds away from breaching the levee she’s built to keep them apart.

A moment passes. Then-

“Can I kiss you?”

He asks, first. He always asks first, and she shivers, and she gets a whiff of him then, his cologne, all woodsy, piney musk, and feels herself throb, clit pulsing with a life of its own.

She entertains the idea, briefly, of letting go tonight. Letting him take the lead, and push her down and fuck her through the mattress until she can’t walk in the morning – or worse: letting him take the lead, and make love to her, tender and slow and sweet.

She thinks, if given the opportunity, he’d probably do the latter. And that’s precisely why she _won’t_ give him the opportunity.

“No,” she breathes, standing on her tiptoes to breathe the word across his lips. “But I know… what you _can_ do.”

“What?”

“Come with me,” is all she says, grabbing hold of his tie and giving it a tug, heading for the bedroom, “and you’ll see.”

He goes willingly, trailing after her, a dog on a leash, devoted as ever. She lets go once she’s reached the end of the bed, signaling wordlessly for him to stop there, and he does, keeping his eyes trained on her as she places her hands on her hips, appraising him silently. Licking her lips.

“Strip,” she tells him finally, firmly. One word.

One word is all she needs.

Frank does, without question, eyes darkened with desire, though it’s hard to see in the dim lamplight. He doesn’t do it to put on a show; he does it with purpose, the express purpose of getting naked. He slips his fingers through his tie deftly, and once it comes undone he casts it off, along with his suit jacket and waistcoat and shirt and pants, all the barriers between them broken. The old Frank would’ve been teasing her mercilessly right about now, talking so dirty she’d go beet red from head to toe, or at the very least eyeing her with a grin – but he’s become something different since they started this, since the power shifted.

He just _wants_. He’s a silent creature, a creature of pure want. He isn’t teasing her, now. Probably can’t find his voice to do so.

Laurel waits until he’s nude to shed her clothes as well, though she lingers for a moment in front of him, running her eyes over his powerful body. Objectifying him in every sense of the world – from his sculpted abdomen to his firm pecs and biceps, to the patch of dark hair starting at his belly button and trailing lower, down between his legs, to his cock. All of him, every sculpted inch he’s given to her, submitted to her. He’d lay at her feet, if she wanted. Kiss them. Give her anything she wanted.

Not tonight, though. She wants something else, tonight.

Soon she’s naked too, and it’s only then that she strides over to her dresser, bending over to reach the bottom drawer and making sure he has a full panoramic view of her backside when she does. She rummages for a moment, then withdraws what she’s looking for, the silicone and plastic toys thick and weighty in her hands.

“I think… you’ve been good,” she says, feeling herself tingle all over, just looking at him, seeing the desire on his face, the gaping of his mouth, all that unconcealed want. She makes her way over to him, holding them up so he can see though she’s sure he’s seen already: a dildo and a little pink bullet vibe. “Tonight you get to watch me.”

He swallows thickly, and she can see his Adam’s apple bob in his throat, eyes flicking from the toys to her then back again. “Laurel-”

“I’ll show you what I did to myself,” she breathes in his ear, as sensuous as she can, nipping lightly at his earlobe, “every night… when you were gone. How’s that sound?”

It’s going to kill him. Maybe legitimately make him stop breathing and expire, right then and there.

She hopes it does.

Again, all he can manage is, “Laurel…”

“Hmm?”

“ _Fuck_ ,” he blurts out, almost groaning the word. She can see him getting hard already, at the sight of her, the thought of what’s to come.

And she’ll give him one hell of a show all right.

Without further ado she draws back, making her way over to the bed and lying down on it, splaying her legs apart and propping two pillows up behind her back, to give him a clear line of sight to her face. She’s wet already, not terribly so, but enough so that one swipe of her fingers into her cunt leaves her with enough wetness to massage upward onto her clit, lubricating it. Just that touch alone makes her gasp, then grin as her eyes flick up to look at Frank standing there, dumbfounded, cock lengthening and thickening between his legs, already at half-mast. He looks almost like he’s resisting the urge to cover himself, inexplicably, even though she’s never known Frank to have much shame.

If any.

There’s nothing that gets him off quite like this, she knows. Watching her touch herself. Tonight is her own specifically-tailored kind of torture, and she sure as fuck intends to milk it for everything it’s worth.

She can be cruel. She can be kind.

She can also be both.

“You can come closer,” she breathes, smirking, as she works her clit idly with one finger, back and forth and then in lazy circles, teasing herself with no real sense of urgency. The toys lay beside her, as yet untouched.

Frank gulps, again. Then he takes a step. One. Two. Obedient.

He would do anything for her, she thinks, in the back of her pleasure-numbed mind. Eat her out for hours until his jaw ached. Let her ride him; his cock, his face. Let her use the dildo on _him_ instead, fuck him until he was a shaking, quivering mess on his knees. Anything. The thought only makes her hotter, and one of her hands migrates to her breast, caressing her nipple in time with her ministrations between her legs.

He stares, transfixed. Breath shallow. Jaw slackened.

“These… are my toys,” she says, with a laugh, as if they need any introduction. She reaches for the vibe, leaving the dildo where it is, wanting to warm herself up before she takes it. “They did the job while you were gone. _Better_ than you, sometimes.”

Lie. That’s a lie, but she’s a good liar and with the state he’s in she doesn’t think Frank is going to be able to tell. She switches on the vibe with the press of her finger, onto one of the lower settings, and guides it against her clit, cherishing the sensation of that low buzz. She bites her lip and bites back a smile, letting her eyelids fall shut and her head loll to one side, a whimper passing through her lips for effect.

She can’t see him. But she knows he’s watching. Of course he is.

“Laurel…” he says her name, a note of warning in it, like he’s on the brink of losing control. And she doesn’t care.

This isn’t about him. This is about _her_. He _left_ her and this is her payback, and he’s going to stand there and take it and watch.

Watch, and realize that she _doesn’t_ need him.

“I don’t need you at all, really,” she continues to goad him, chuckling, switching the vibe up a few settings and working it lower, down across her velvety folds, before bringing it back up to stimulate her clit. “Or any guy. Just these. They – _ah_ – they do the trick. And this?” She laughs, reaching over for the dildo and holding it up all eight red silicone inches of it, thick around, firm in her hand and patterned lightly with raised veins and a slim, tapered tip, but not otherwise overly realistic. “It’s bigger than you anyway.”

That’s the way to truly antagonize Frank – or, well, she figures, probably any man in the world: belittle his dick. It’s a half-lie; it’s around the same size as Frank, a little smaller, and admittedly not nearly as satisfying, as she generally prefers skin to silicone. But silicone will do for the purposes of tonight’s demonstration and so she brings it up, pressing it against her lips, letting her tongue dart out to dampen the tip lightly as the vibe continues to hum away dutifully against her clit, wetting her cunt. Getting her ready, until it’s positively sloppy with her juices, burning hot. Volcanic.

She stills the vibe for a moment to bring the cock down between her legs, nudging it against her clit and playing up the resulting shiver for Frank’s viewing pleasure. She’s only vaguely paying attention to him now, and she can tell he’s fighting the urge to touch himself as she touches _her_ self, but he doesn’t. His hands stay at his sides, balled into fists, which twitch when she slips the toy inside of her, past the delicate, fluttering ring of muscle at her entrance. It’s thick around, thick enough to stretch her almost to that delicious point of pain, but she adjusts quickly and lets herself moan, mewl, whine freely, as she takes more and more, urging it into her cunt and bringing the vibe back to her clit.

“Oh _fuck_ ,” she breathes out the words on a sputtered laugh. “Mmm… _oh_ …”

A moment passes before she starts to pump herself with the toy, feeling the pattern of veins brush her inner walls, feeling herself expand to accommodate it. She thrusts it in and out languidly, leaving the vibe on her clit, feeling that warning clench inside her, letting her know she’s growing closer by the second, and it hasn’t even been long at all. The wicked pleasure she gets from knowing Frank is watching only amplifies the sensations, and she wishes, suddenly, that she had two more hands, one for each breast. More. Always more.

She could enlist Frank to help her out in that department, she supposes. But she’ll make do.

She’s perfectly aware of how she looks, all wanton, spread legs and keening, feverish moans, fucking herself with the toy cock and letting the vibe occupy her aching clit. Just one isn’t enough. She’s greedy for the pleasure. Insatiable. Her hips buck and roll, controlled by those libidinous lines of code in her biology. She keeps going.

She decides, right then, it’s time to start doing some talking.

“Watch me,” she orders, though she doesn’t have to; he _is_ watching. He’s fidgeting, probably giving everything in him to keep from rushing over here and replacing her toy cock with his own. “Don’t you fucking _dare_ look away.”

“’M not,” he chokes out, somehow. “I am… fuck, lemme-”

“What?” she breathes, pleasure tightening between her legs, winding tighter and tighter like a jack in the box, and any moment now she’ll turn the handle, make one wrong move and everything will come bursting forward. “What do you want?”

He’s walking towards her now, and she hasn’t given him permission but she doesn’t tell him to stop. He stops at the end of the bed, swallowing again, apparently not able to find the proper words to match his feelings – or really any words at all.

“Close,” she tells him, laughing almost manically, diabolically, breathlessly. She changes up the angle of the toy, and the spots it hits and glides over and caresses inside her are searing with ecstasy, sending her hurtling toward climax, like a stick of dynamite at the end of a fuse. “Mmm… I’m gonna come… gonna make myself come, _ah_ … oh-”

This is different than how she usually talks. This is all a bit play-acted. Exaggerated and ridiculous. She doesn’t care.

That’s what she _wants._

“Let me,” he begs, again, and he’s at the bedside now, hovering over her, cock jutting out between his legs. He sinks down onto his knees, clenching his jaw. “I’m better than a toy, lemme show you…”

The vibe gets tossed aside, then. It continues buzzing away beside her on the sheets, and she uses her newly-freed hand to stroke her clit directly, almost pawing at it, increasingly desperate to get that extra jolt she needs to send her over the top.

“Are you?” she pants, biting her lower lip. “Think these’re doing all right.”

“Lemme fuck you,” is all he can manage, almost infantile, reduced to a babbling mess of desire. He groans, moving in close and pressing a kiss to her shoulder, unbidden. “Please, Laurel, let me-”

She cuts him off.

She pounces.

Laurel abandons the toy in a split second, letting it tumble to the side along with the vibrator, and grabs him, pulling him up and sideways onto the bed so that he’s on top of her, cock at the ready. Her legs are spread beneath him, body pinned down, and if he wanted he could fuck into her right now, get what he wants, but he won’t. Not without permission. Not unless she tells him to.

She doesn’t tell him to.

Instead Laurel reaches down, grabbing his cock firmly and circling it around her sopping wet cunt, brushing her clit and then slowly, torturously, taking his tip inside her. Allowing him a taste. A reminder of what he’s missing.

“Feel that?” she says, whimpering, wanting so badly to take the rest of him, quivering on the verge of orgasm but refraining. “Remember what it’s like to be inside me? How good I feel?”

The groan she loosens from his throat is almost inhuman. She has no clue what it is, what _he_ is; he looks brainless, crazed. His eyes are blazing, teeth gritted, face deep red, dripping with sweat, a vein pulsing unnaturally in his forehead, but he’s full of more need than he is anger, and she knows it. She holds his cock, just the head, drenching it, leaving him there.

“Fuck… _fuck_ , yes, Laurel-”

“You think you’ve been good enough for that?” Laurel asks, laughing breathlessly. “Think I should let you fuck me? Come inside me? I know how much you love that, coming inside me. No condom. Just all of me.” He doesn’t say anything; he just moans, again, and she takes him inside her just a centimeter more. “ _Answer_ me.”

“Yes,” he chokes out, with a sound like a half-sob. “Please, fuckin’ please, Laurel, yes, I been good, so good-”

She could be cruel. She could be kind. She could give him what he wants.

But there’s no fun in that.

“Not good enough.”

Before Frank can protest she’s all but thrown him off her again, over onto the sheets at her side, and reached for the toy once more to finish herself off. It might be easier just to use Frank’s fingers, or grab him by the scalp and drag him down and fuck herself on his mouth, but she doesn’t want to give him the satisfaction of being the one to get her off.

She has the trusty toy repositioned lightning fast, buried inside her again, and it all happens in a blur but Frank is kneeling at the end of the bed, suddenly, to get a better vantage point, captivated. He’s close to coming too and she can tell, can see the pearlescent beads of precome shining on the head of his cock. She wonders if she could make him come like this, without her touching him at all, without _him_ touching _himself_. Probably she could – but she won’t.

Instead she throws him a bone, at long last.

“Touch yourself,” she orders, voice raw and hard, picking up the pace, fingering her clit almost frantically, as if she’s racing the clock to finish. She rubs it in furious circles, indiscernible patterns, pistoning the cock in and out but still with practiced finesse; she knows her body well enough to know that just _hard_ and _fast_ won’t get her off. When he doesn’t move she raises her voice. “You heard me. Do it.”

She swears Frank stops breathing, for a moment.

Then, hastily, he complies.

He wraps his hand around his cock, stroking himself in time with her thrusts of the toy, and the sight of him like that, on his knees, pumping his cock for her, matching her grand, lewd, groaning display, is enough to set her teetering on the edge, moaning and panting and writhing.

One day she’ll let him fuck her again, maybe. But today is not that day.

She’s starting to think she likes this more anyway.

“Laurel,” he grunts, raising his chin, slowing his breathing as if in an effort to hold out, because she can tell how close he is. “Shit, Lau…”

“Come for me,” is all she says, though her words are more a series of pants and strained breaths, her mind lost, all her motor functions gone except for the movement of her hand fucking the toy in and out of her. It isn’t an order. It comes out sounding more like a plea. “C-c’mon, ah… oh _fuck_ , fuck, oh God, Frank. Make yourself come, _do it_ -”

His name. She hasn’t uttered his name once this whole time, and it’d been a little accidental but mostly on purpose. She tries to hold back, contain herself. Not let him know how fucking _hot_ the sight of him watching her and touching himself because of her is. His hands slips over his cock in hard, firm strokes, over the prominent veins in his shaft, the bulge of his tip.

All of it. The sight of him. He’s watching her. Getting off to the sight of her. The feeling of being so blissfully, completely _full_. Her finger on her clit. It’s too much at once. Too stimulating.

She shifts the angle of the toy, once more. And that’s all it takes to send her out hurtling of the stratosphere.

Her body jerks and twitches, buckling under the force of her orgasm, swept under by the waves and drowned so sweetly. That little seed of building desire planted between her legs bursts like it’s suddenly been exposed to sunlight, and its roots shoot out into her in all directions, up to her stomach and down her legs, sprouting in her fingers, her toes. Taking over her.

Frank comes only a second later, with a deep, strained moan, hand pumping his cock rapidly, the obscene sound of skin slapping skin filling the room. He’s close enough to her that he lands in hot ropes on the flat plane of her belly, and as she comes down she lets the toy fall to the side again, reaching up and swirling her fingers in his come, and bringing it down to rub it on her clit, her folds, where she loves feeling it. Feeling _him._

It’s filthy. Messy as all hell.

Laurel doesn’t care. The best sex always is.

Their breathing is labored when they both come down, returning to at least some semblance of mental stability in some place that is moderately similar to planet earth. Frank doesn’t need to be told what to do next; before she can even open her mouth he’s diving in, licking her clean with that adept tongue of his, diligent and thorough, until her skin is spotless and milky once more, save for a few rogue splotches of come near her ribcage which he seems inclined to leave, if only to prove he was there. Mark his territory.

She’ll let him have that, she figures.

They don’t say anything for a moment, either of them. Frank moves down at her side, without a word, and presses kisses to her bare shoulder, her collarbone, then makes a show of switching off the still-buzzing vibe next to them to make her laugh, and chucking it off the bed gracelessly. They go still, and silence, mixed with the sound of their labored breathing, enfolds them. It’s hard not to let her guard down, post-coital, and she doesn’t entirely succeed in keeping it up tonight. She lets him move in close without asking, peppering kisses on her breasts and neck, and doesn’t push him away.

He doesn’t have to say it aloud for her to know they mean _thank you_.

“I love you,” he rasps, abruptly, breaking the silence between them, face nuzzling her neck.

Laurel tenses, initially. That’s a bit too personal for comfort, something she’d rather not bring into the bedroom; as soon as they step over this threshold there’s no place for any of that. They’d tried their hand at love, once, and it’d ended in a disaster to end all disasters. They work best at a strictly physical level – just bodies and mouths and fingers to each other, not hearts.

But again there’s that flame somewhere inside her, that low, unrelenting burn, and she can’t fend it off forever, she knows. Can only put it out so many times before it inevitably catches and spreads and takes control.

So she hums, and allows herself a laugh, craftily avoiding any definite answer to that. “You better.”

“I mean it,” he insists. “I do.”

He kisses her for a moment, rabid, still hungry but mostly sated. She combs her fingers through his hair, laying her head back against the pillow, enjoying the sparks of pleasure that shoot from her core as he mouths one of her nipples idly, humming, the tide of sleep past coming in and washing over her.

Then-

“Can I kiss you?”

That question, again. Asked so nicely, with so much sincerity in those blue eyes of his. This time it breaks her, and she nods, and he raises his face to hers, seizing her lips, kissing her sweetly, with the groggy taste of sleep on his tongue. It’s not something she allows him often, this degree of intimacy. She keeps herself at a fair distance, in fear of what might happen if she lets him get too close again.

Part of her knows he wouldn’t hurt her. That he wouldn’t dare, now.

He would do anything for her. He’s proven that a hundred times over, in submitting to her, and proved it again tonight. Proved it tonight and will prove it again, as many times as she wants, until maybe, just maybe, one day he can get her to believe it.

Frank pulls away after a moment, looking up at her. “You want me to go?”

That earns him a coy smile. “You asking to stay?”

“Yeah.”

“Then yes.” Her smile grows wider, and she tugs him closer, kissing him again. Kissing him deeper. “You can stay.”

And she can be cruel, maybe, and she _is_ cruel more often than not, but she can also be kind. Generous. Merciful. So Laurel lets him lay his head down on her chest, curl up against her, still kissing at her breasts, and she holds him, more gently than she’s allowed herself in what must be ages.

Yes, she can be cruel. But she can be kind.

And you have to be cruel to be kind, after all.


End file.
